yobigd20
Well-Known Member
Fwiw drive an i3 at CES today and floored it. Got the balloon noise.
the balloon noise was probably from a tesla driving circles around you.
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Fwiw drive an i3 at CES today and floored it. Got the balloon noise.
But don't you agree that if the "balloon" was normal, as Tesla is insisting, it would be present in every car from day one?
From what I hear, it seems to be more of an issue on Performance models (I have a Standard) and may very well be present from day one. There could be factors like temperature, state of charge and how hard the driver is accelerating that cause the sound to occur at some times and not others. Of course, this is a guess on my part.
I've always wondered why no one raised this question, since some owners don't report the same noises as others.... if it is a "normal" sound, why don't all cars produce it? If it is a normal "performance" sound, why don't all performance models make it?Obviously it should not be making the noise all the time. But, if it is a normal sound, when you cause the balloon noise in one car, performing the same action (acceleration or whatnot) in another car should also produce the noise. This doesn't seem to be the case. I doubt the noise is just the price you have to pay for the performance inverter.
Hello,
Not sure if it helps but when I first received the car, I never had the noise. Few weeks later, it appeared. The only thing that happened in between is that I might have "tested" what was the top speed of the car in a safe environment of course. Right after that, the noise appeared... I would be curious to see if those who don't have the noise never went above a certain speed while those who have the noise (i.e. most of the people) have "tested" the top speed? Tesla engineers can probably use that info along with the metrics they have access to in order to figure out if that could be the cause...
I have hit top speed a couple of times + ran > 2kW power for many 1/2 mile runs and a couple of > 2 mile runs (and even getting limited below 160kW with > 200 mi rated range left). Tested it all - sideways slide at ~80 moh
car is silent, besides the little inverter hum
So basically, we put this down to motor/inverter manufacturing variances. With some luck, this will get better in later cars.
Fwiw drive an i3 at CES today and floored it. Got the balloon noise.
So, basically, Tesla is using the "It's not a bug, it's a feature" defense?
No defense needed. It's not a bug. It's not a feature. It's just a property of dumping that much current through electro-mechanical connections.
To put it in perspective, a Supercharger delivers a max current of 120kW. Think about how beefy the Supercharger cables need to be and that giant stack of power electronics behind them needed to support that. Then realize that during peak acceleration your car is delivering 2.5 times as much energy as a Supercharger across the connections from your battery to your motor. 310kW is an IMMENSE amount of power. The kind of power normally reserved for electronics the size of refrigerators. Those big green power company boxes that hum like mad. The stuff that fills up rooms in the basements of commercial buildings that require OSHA approved hearing protection to be around.
Reducing that down to a tiny little squeal is honestly quite an achievement.
No defense needed. It's not a bug. It's not a feature. It's just a property of dumping that much current through electro-mechanical connections.
Sorry, but if this was just a physics thing, it should occur every time the power draw on a Model S exceeds a certain threshold and it doesn't. Some cars never experience this sound. Some develop it over time. This is not caused by the power electronics.
There are too many variables at play to draw this as a forgone conclusion. Temperature, humidity, pack size, inverter type (normal or performance), mileage, and pack state of charge all affect whether the sound manifests itself or not.
If someone can control for all these variables and show two cars identical in all those ways above and one makes the sound and one doesn't then I'll accept that conclusion. This has not been done yet to my knowledge.
There are too many variables at play to draw this as a forgone conclusion. Temperature, humidity, pack size, inverter type (normal or performance), mileage, and pack state of charge all affect whether the sound manifests itself or not.
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For me, what's interesting is the Roadster didn't have this problem. It *can* be avoided.
The roadster motor pulled 185-200kw, the model S performance pulls 340Kw+. Big difference.